Loathing You
by Chloe Kompton
Summary: GLaDOS is forced to bring Wheatley back to Earth. It takes him less than a day to completely destroy her life...again. But now that he's trapped her in Caroline's deteriorating body, he might be the only one who can save her. Building up to WheatDOS.
1. Chapter 1

**[A/N: So this is WheatDOS. It's going to start off with them having the in-game relationship, so it's going to take a while for them to even start nicely tolerating each other. Therefore, this is going to be a long story. Curse me and my liking logic. :P]**

"I can make it up to you!"

He'd said those words to her, both desperate and earnest, so many times over the past decade that it was becoming difficult for even her to tell the precise number. She hadn't believed him the first time, given the little moron's ability to mess absolutely _anything_ up, and nothing had changed since then.

None of her opinions had changed, that is. Something_ had_ changed, something crucial, and now GLaDOS was left with no other option but to bring the Intelligence Dampening Sphere back to Earth.

After decades spent repairing the damage caused to mankind by the Combine Invasion, humans were just now beginning to venture out into space again. They were certain to find the two defective cores, and GLaDOS was unwilling to just leave them there and wait for that to happen. She would not be responsible for allowing Aperture technology—even _broken_ Aperture technology—to fall into the wrong hands.

She'd been checking up on the humans' progress ever since she'd been reactivated. It was slow, but considering the damage that had been caused by the invasion, it bordered on impressive. And she'd been checking up on the stranded cores nearly as long. After all, the last thing she wanted was for the moron to break down and miss out on his punishment.

It had been ten years of amusement watching him suffer, but now they were coming to a close. Still, she didn't have to tell _him_ that. There were still three days before the humans' satellites came online, and that meant three more days of watching him suffer. That was not to say that he wouldn't suffer once he returned to Aperture. Because he _would_ suffer. _Dearly_.

"How?" she asked, noting the look of surprise on his optic. In the past, this had been the point where she had begun taunting him. Never before had she asked him a question. "How could you possibly make up for forcing me into a potato?"

"Uh, w-well," he stuttered, "I…I've had a lot of time to think about this, and I think that I could…get rid of the potato for you. So that there's absolutely no chance of it happening again. Yes." He nodded. "I've been thinking that would do quite nicely."

"Moron," she snarled. "The first thing I did when I was back in my body was eliminate that potato, along with all the others. In fact, I destroyed that entire sublevel. Try again."

"I'm not a moron," he protested. "But…but…maybe I could put you in…something else? Not a potato. But something…better. Oh! I know! How about a core? Like me? It's not bad at all! In fact, I love being a core! Although, it's best when you're not stranded in space…"

"No," she replied, rolling her optic in disgust before severing the connection. Really, it would be in her best interests to just deactivate him once he reached Aperture. But that would deprive her of the chance to make his insignificant little life even more miserable than it already was.

GLaDOS had already decided against the room where all the robots scream at you. She'd mulled it over for a while, but had decided that the little idiot would either grow accustomed to it or irritate the robots into silence, and neither of those options was preferable. That was why she hadn't brought him back from space right after the lunatic had left her facility, really; it was a far better punishment than anything she could manufacture.

But now that she was being forced to consider the topic once more, she found herself at a loss. She'd taken the easy way out before, but now she needed a new punishment, one even worse than what he'd been going through for the past decade. GLaDOS supposed she could send him to the lunatic, but that would most likely punish her even more than him, and the lunatic no longer deserved a punishment. They were even now, besides.

Twenty-four hours had passed, and GLaDOS still had no acceptable punishment. She'd thought about locking him in a dark, isolated area so that it would resemble space, but there would still be a feeling of safety there for him. Another consideration had been putting him in a potato for eternity, but she didn't have any potatoes anymore.

What she did have, however, were humans. Thousands of them. The Intelligence Dampening Sphere had not been created from a human the way she herself had, but his programming was advanced enough to be able to convert into brain patterns, which she could then imprint into a brain-dead human. After all, about one in every twenty test subjects had the nerve to be brain-dead and therefore of no use whatsoever to her. One of them might as well serve some purpose.

She smirked as she opened the communications channel to the moron, simultaneously beginning her search for a suitable test subject. GLaDOS wanted one that was not only brain-dead but also scrawny and weak, so that even the simplest of physical tasks would be pure torture.

"Good news," she said. The camera attached to the Space Core's outer hull showed the moron's look of surprise at being contacted twice in two days. "I've changed my mind. I've decided to bring you back to Earth."

"_Really?_" he squawked, sounding positively delighted. "You're—you're really going to—oh, thank you! Thank you thank you thank you! You won't regret this, I promise!"

"But on the other hand," GLaDOS pretended to muse, "hearing the sound of your idiotic voice on a daily basis just might be enough to drive even me insane. No, I think you're wrong. I _would_ regret it."

"No no no no no!" he protested, sounding frantic. "I can be quiet! I promise you! You'll never have to hear my voice again! Yep, little Wheatley, shutting up. Right now, in fact. Shutting up…now."

GLaDOS rolled her optic, despite the fact that he couldn't see her. "You are _incapable_ of being quiet."

"I am not!" he said. "See? Do you hear this?" There was a brief silence, and then, "That was the sound of me being quiet. In case you couldn't tell." He sounded smug, like he really thought he'd accomplished something, and GLaDOS gave an inward smirk as she spoke again.

"Well, perhaps you're right."

"I am! Yes! Of course I am! But…wait…I _am_?" Now he sounded suspicious, and that wouldn't do at all.

"I said perhaps," she snapped. "That means 'maybe.' 'Possibly.' Not 'definitely.' It also means that I have decided to reconsider my earlier decision of allowing you to return to the Enrichment Center."

"Oh…" he said, the excitement that had been evident in his voice before replaced by sorrow. "But…but you said…"

"And then you started talking, and it caused me to reverse my decision," GLaDOS said. "As usual, your misfortune is your own fault. Congratulations, moron."

"I'm not a—" He cut himself off. "But, reconsider, that means you might let me come back, doesn't it?"

"Yes, there is a chance," she said. "However small it may be."

"Ah, brilliant!" he exclaimed, sounding thrilled. "Take your time reconsidering, take your time! As long as you don't take _too_ long, that is…"

Chuckling, she severed the connection. It would have been more fun to give him false hope, and she found herself wishing she had thought of this earlier, but leaving him suffering from anxious anticipation was almost as good. GLaDOS could just imagine him up there, babbling nervously without pause for the next twenty-four hours, and she thought about turning on the camera in the Space Core to watch, but she didn't want him to know she was watching. She would just have to download the footage from the Space Core's memory databanks later.

It took her a while to find a human that fit the requirements she had laid out. Most of the test subjects in storage were strong and muscled, and every time she found one that was short and scrawny, it didn't have brain damage. And of course she _could_ use an undamaged human, but that would require wasting a test subject, so that was to be a last resort. A _very_ last resort.

At long last, though, all her waiting paid off. A scrawny, brain-damaged human was located, and she removed him from the vault to give him closer examination. He didn't react when GLaDOS poked and prodded at him, but she noted with satisfaction that his physical body was undamaged. Yes, this would do nicely.

The body that was to become the moron's was moved to a laboratory to await the transfer, and when twenty-four hours were up, she reopened the communications channel. "I've been giving this matter a lot of thought, and I've finally come to a decision."

"Oh?" His voice was nervous, but sparkled with hope. "And…and what might that be?"

"I want you to understand that I thought about it long and hard," she said. "Truly."

He nodded to the best of his ability, although it looked more like he was rocking back and forth with excitement. "Go on…"

"And the answer is no."

The rocking stopped. "No?"

"No," she repeated. "I have decided that it would be far more beneficial to me if I did not bring you back from space. You're a moron and a destructive menace, as well as the last thing I need around my facility. Thank you for helping me realize that. Suggesting that I might not regret it really helped me to determine that I would."

"But—but that isn't what I meant!" he protested. "Oh, please, don't leave me here, I can't stay here any longer, I'll go _insane_!"

"Insane!" the Space Core cried. "Insane, in space! Space. Space. Insane together. In space!"

The moron let out such a frustrated and heartbroken scream that even GLaDOS was a bit shocked by it, although she didn't show it. "That won't help you, you know. Acting like a human will _never_ help you. Except, of course," she added almost as an afterthought, "for when it might."

"What d'you mean, 'when it might'?" he asked bitterly. "I don't mean to act like a human, but I can't _help_ it, because it's in my bloody programming. Humans!" He sighed. "I hate them. Never anything good about humans, is there?"

That, she figured, was the one thing they could agree on. "No. Never."

"Smelly humans," he said with distaste, and repeated, "Hate them."

"That's really all I wanted to know," she said.

"Wait, what do you mean by that—?"

She cut off the connection without replying or even waiting for him to finish his sentence. There had only been a small chance that the little idiot would actually _enjoy_ the chance to be a human, but she preferred to make sure beforehand. After all, he'd seemed quite fond of the lunatic when they were working together, and he often begged her to pass along his apologies. She always refused, of course.

It was ten more minutes before she activated his homing signal, along with the Space Core's. She enjoyed the idea of him suffering in space, having finally had hope after so many years before having it ripped away from him, and she could just _imagine_ the look of confused shock on his moronic little optic as he began shooting back towards Earth. This was more footage she'd have to be sure to download.

It would take approximately half an hour for the two cores to return. In the meantime, she prepped the laboratory for the operation. With any luck, it would be painful for the Intelligence Dampening Sphere—but not so painful that he wouldn't survive—and effective. She wished she'd been able to test the procedure beforehand, but she hadn't had the time.

After twenty-five minutes had passed, the roof of the shed in the wheat field slid open, and an excursion funnel began beaming out. Since it was the middle of the afternoon and the shed was nowhere near any human dwellings, GLaDOS believed that no one would see it. But if someone did, well. She had plenty of defenses.

The homing signals got closer and closer, until at last they slammed into the excursion funnel so hard that they almost crashed into the floor of the shed. Fortunately, GLaDOS's calculations had (as usual) been correct, and the funnel's opposing force managed to begin pushing them back out. She reversed the funnel, bringing them back inside the shed, and focused part of her attention on the footage from one of the outside cameras.

"AAAAAA!" the moron was screaming. His optic was squeezed shut. "OH MY GOD, WE'RE GOING TO DIE! WE'RE GOING TO—WE'RE—WE'RE—we're going the—the opposite way now?" His optic shot open, and darted around in a curious panic at its surroundings.

"Space!" the other defective core was howling. "Space! Space! Not in space anymore, where'd the space go? SPACE! WANNA GO BACK TO SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"

The two cores reached the floor of the shed, and GLaDOS switched the excursion funnel off.

"We…we're in some sort of building," the moron said, clearly trying to make some sort of sense of his new environment. "And that…that's good, right? Can't be bad. Can't be bad at all, not even a little. Better than space, right, mate? Anything's better than space…"

"SPAAAAAAAAAAACE!" the other core howled.

GLaDOS chose that moment to speak, via the intercom system that was present throughout the entire facility. "Hello."

At that, the moron's optic widened as the pleasant situation he'd managed to convince himself he was in all of a sudden went sour. "Oh, no! No no no no no! Not here! We _can't_ be here!"

"Can't be in space," the Space Core muttered, sounding like it was on the verge of some sort of a mental breakdown. "Ba ba ba ba ba, can't be in space no more. Wanna go back to space." GLaDOS took pity on it—well, to be more accurate, she took pity on her own sanity—and deactivated it. The moron stared in horror as its optic went dark, and began to rock back and forth with agitation.

"Of course you're here," GLaDOS said. "Really now, where _else_ did you think a homing signal would take you?"

"Oh! Is—is that what that was?" the moron asked, sounding more curious than scared. That wouldn't do for long, but it would not be difficult to remedy. "Because all there was was a sort of a beeping noise, and a flashing light, and a voice saying 'Please prepare to return to the Enrichment Center,' but I've got no idea what the Enrichment Center is so—"

"Enough," GLaDOS snapped. How stupid could one core _be_? "I suppose I should explain myself. It has been ten years, and even I am not cruel enough to keep you in space forever." If it hadn't been for the humans and their infernal need to expand into places where no one wanted them, she would have had no qualms doing just that, but the moron didn't have to know that. "So I decided to bring you back. Your punishment is over. Congratulations."

"_Really_?" the core squeaked. He was rocking back and forth again, but this time it was out of excitement rather than fear. "Oh, thank you! Thank you thank you _thank you_! You won't regret this, I promise!"

"Yes, really," she replied, choosing to ignore the rest of his babbling. "So now, I have a reward for you."

"A…reward?" he asked, hesitating for a brief moment before his optic brightened. "Oh! A reward! You get those for doing something good, don't you?" He was now rocking back and forth even quicker than before. Even after all these years, GLaDOS was still amused by how easy it was to trick him.

"Correct, for once," she said, then, as if she'd just thought of it, "Oh."

"'Oh'?" he asked eagerly, not picking up on her shift in tone. Moving her voice from sweet to dangerous in no time flat was a fear tactic, and she was annoyed that he was too stupid to even pick up on it. "What d'you mean, 'oh'?"

"I mean, 'oh,'" GLaDOS said. "Once again, you've caused me to rethink my plans." At least he possessed the basic intelligence to remember previous events, because at that his optic widened and he began to stutter protests, but she cut him off. "You haven't done anything good, have you? Nothing to warrant a reward after all."

"Well, n-no," he stuttered, "I g-guess not, b-but—"

"So I suppose this won't be a reward after all," she continued, making her voice even darker. "It will be a continuation of your punishment. But different. No more space, for instance."

"W-well," he offered weakly, "I suppose that th-that's something—"

"It certainly is," she interrupted. "You should be grateful that I was kind enough to do this much for you. Most people in my position would have just left you there. You do realize that, don't you? But luckily for you, I'm a bigger person than that."

"Y-you are?" he asked in surprise, then as he realized what he'd just said, he added quickly, "Not that I'm saying that you're not! Because you are, I mean, of course you are…"

"You're a moron," she snapped. "I'm done wasting my time talking to you." Without warning, a metal claw moved over from the ceiling and picked up the little core before shoving him into the elevator. She ignored his cry of protest and did the same to the other core. The elevator's door closed, and it began its descent.

When it reached its first destination, the laboratory—GLaDOS refused to risk having that little idiot anywhere _near_ her chamber—the Intelligence Dampening Sphere was ejected via a miniature built-in Aerial Faith Plate. It had been a design of Cave Johnson's that had never been implemented because his secretary had managed to convince him that it was a waste of money. GLaDOS, on the other hand, found it to be quite a useful feature, especially if that lunatic ever were to pop up again—they might have been even, but that didn't mean the master AI wanted her back. The little core landed right in the waiting receptacle and blinked up at the ceiling, optic wide with fear.

Babbling was his natural fear mechanism, and he began right away, but she ignored him, instead moving the elevator back up towards her chamber. Once there, she removed the Space Core and plugged it into a port in the side of her chassis in order to download its memory files. She could sort through to find the relevant ones later.

Then she turned her attention back to the Intelligence Dampening Sphere. He was still babbling, but her words cut through it like a knife. "I suppose you're wondering why I've brought you to this laboratory."

It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway. "Y-yes."

"The answer is simple," she said. "I have brought you here for fun."

"Fun?" he asked, looking confused. "But, but I thought that y-you said—"

She cut him off. "In layman's terms, I have brought you here for science. And science," she said as he noticed the instruments moving towards him and let out a terrified shriek, "_is fun_."

**[A/N: Fffff long set-up chapter is long. Sorry! Reviews are appreciated, even though I'll probably continue this without them. XD]**


	2. Chapter 2

The instruments paused, hovering over the Intelligence Dampening Sphere as he continued to scream. A low laugh echoed throughout the facility. "Poor little idiot. You don't have the slightest idea what's about to happen to you, do you? Can you even hazard a guess?"

His lack of response annoyed but didn't deter her. The instruments continued to hover. After a moment, when the core noticed they weren't moving closer and started to ask what was going on, they dove in and the screaming started all over again. If GLaDOS had had lips, she would have been smiling.

She should have done this a _long_ time ago.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the procedure to begin, and the procedure required the core in question to be deactivated. GLaDOS waited until the pain of not abiding by protocol became almost unbearable, then switched him off via his remote signal. The stop of the shrill screaming, no matter how entertaining it had been, was almost as much as a relief as the stop of the pain.

Once the actual data transfer began, GLaDOS focused her attention on the deactivated Space Core, who was still lying on the floor of her chamber. The transfer was going to take a while, and she would be alerted right away if something went wrong and her attention were needed.

She used a claw to pick the core up and plug it into a receptacle, where its memory files of the last ten years began downloading. It would take a few hours, but GLaDOS was willing to wait. Sorting through the files could provide her with _plenty_ of entertainment. Still, though, this raised the question of what to do with the now-deactivated core.

If pressed, GLaDOS would admit to having a bit of a soft spot for the defective cores. They'd helped her get back in her body, after all, and it didn't hurt anything to have them running around the facility, performing menial tasks. She wouldn't mind doing the same for this core. But unlike the others, the Space Core had a…unique situation. It didn't _want_ to do menial tasks. It wanted to go back to _space._

She sighed. Maybe there was a dark closet filled with fireflies somewhere.

At long last, the data transfer was complete (although the Space Core's memory files were still downloading). GLaDOS watched through the camera in the infirmary as the stasis pod containing the moron opened.

Nothing happened.

"You can get up now," she said, rolling her optic. "The transfer is complete."

There was a brief silence, then a tentative, "Uh…what transfer might that be, exactly? Because I can't see a bloody thing, and none of my self-diagnostics are working, and—"

His voice hadn't changed, making one of her predictions correct. She made a note in the moron's file before answering. "Open your eyes, you idiot."

Pause.

"My…my what?"

This was going to be harder than she had expected. How was she supposed to teach a moron to blink? It was a reflex action in humans, and there were few ways to induce a reflex action other than to—

_Oh._

She sent a small electric jolt through the bottom of the pod. It wasn't much, but it caused the moron to yelp and sit bolt upright. One of her cameras zoomed in on his eyes, which were almost bugging out of their sockets. Coincidentally, that was GLaDOS's favorite expression on humans.

"Do you understand now?" she asked. "What the transfer was?"

Even as he shook his head no (evidently another reflex action), he was moving his hand up towards his face to stare at it. "What…what's this?"

She began to explain, her voice filled with childish glee, but the sharp sound of flesh hitting flesh and a loud "Ow!" cut her off. The moron was still sitting in the stasis pod, but his hand was pressed to his nose, and he was looking confused. A quick review of the camera footage from the past ten seconds told her what had happened, and she sighed.

"You idiot. Movement should be _intuitive _to you."

"That _hurt,_" the moron said, offended that she didn't seem to care. "I still don't know what's going on here, but you gave me defective…things. Defective things that hurt me." Somehow, he managed to fold his arms, giving the camera a hurt stare. "If I've got to have these…things…can't I have ones that aren't defective, at least?" His eyes were pleading, but GLaDOS just let out a derisive snort.

"They're not defective, moron. _You're_ defective." He opened his mouth to protest, but she kept talking. "Why don't we see if you can stand? That should prove to be amusing."

"Stand?" he asked, sounding uncertain. "Look, I don't mean to be annoying or irritating or a bother, but what, exactly, is it that you've done to me?"

She paused for effect, then ordered, "Look to your left."

He looked unsure for a moment, then settled for just glancing around. As his pale blue eyes locked on the empty core across the room, they widened in horror. "That's…but…that's _me_!"

"That _was_ you," she corrected, thoroughly enjoying herself. "And now it is not."

His eyes were wide. "But…but…but how?"

"The 'how' is irrelevant," she said. "What _is_ relevant is that now, you are a human." At that, she noted with satisfaction that his eyes widened even more. "So stand." He didn't react. "Stand or I will electrify the stasis pod again."

At that, his face turned ashen. "No! No, don't do that, please oh please don't do that. I'll stand! I will!" He stared at the floor for a few minutes, and just as GLaDOS was getting ready to follow through on her threat, he took a deep breath and placed both hands on either side of the pod. Closing his eyes (she dearly hoped he'd be able to get them open again), he pushed himself up.

With his hands.

"No," she snapped, not bothering to hide her impatience. He was somehow managing to prop himself up above the bottom of the pod, but that was beside the point. "Use your legs, you little idiot."

"Not an idiot," he muttered, then, louder, "Can't I just use these? These, ah, arms, are they? Because I think they're much better than legs. Easier to use, even if they are defective."

"Nnnnnnnn—yes," GLaDOS said, correcting herself. "Yes, you can just use those. Please climb out of the stasis pod and move yourself around the room using only your arms."

His bony face lit up as her sarcasm went right over his head. "Great! I'll just go ahead and do that, then!"

She watched with silent amusement as he judged the distance from the pod to the ground and his face fell. "That…that isn't going to work, is it? Maybe I'd better figure out how to use these legs after all…I mean, humans use them all the time, right? How difficult can it be?"

"However difficult it is, I suggest you find out," she snapped, hiding her surprise that he'd figured that out so quickly. Maybe the little moron wasn't as confined to his programming in a human body. "I am losing my patience with you."

His already-pale face whitened even more, and with a sharp inhale of breath, he shut his eyes. Gripping one side of the stasis pod with both hands, he carefully brought his legs out and swung them over, then tried to drop to the ground. "Tried" was the operative word there, as somewhere along the way he managed to lose his balance and sprawl out onto the ground. "Ow!"

GLaDOS rescinded her earlier hypothesis.

"Get up," she ordered, and gripping the stasis pod, he struggled to his feet. "Good. Maybe you're not _completely_ incompetent."

"Not incompetent at all, I'd say," he protested. "N-now that I'm standing, c-could I please just go back to being a core..?"

"No," she snapped. "Now you're going to learn how to move."

Over the next few hours, she ran him through his paces, instructing him on how to walk and move his limbs. She was incredibly patient, for her, and by the time they were done, he had a general understanding of how to work his new body.

"We're done now," GLaDOS said after she saw him stumble over thin air for the sixth time in a row. "Please return to your stasis pod. It is time for you to sleep."

"Sleep?" he asked, blinking his bleary eyes in confusion. "What d'you mean, sleep? I don't need sleep."

"You do now," she told him. "Climb into the pod or I will move you there by force."

The color drained out of his face, and he stumbled towards the pod, using desks and keyboards to brace on. There was a lot of active technology in the infirmary and other portions of Old Aperture that GLaDOS didn't have access to, but she assumed that if it were important, she would know about it.

She held onto that assumption up until the moron slammed his hand down on a keyboard and alarms began to flash. He withdrew his hand, looking startled. "Sorry! So sorry, didn't mean to do that, whatever it is I did—"

"Warning!" the announcer's voice interrupted. "Project GLaDOS has failed! Failsafe activated!"

"_What_?" GLaDOS snarled. "What did you _do,_ you little idiot? _Fix it_!" She wasn't sure what was happening, or how it had started, but already she could feel her crucial systems shutting down. It was taking all her effort just to stay conscious, and all the moron was doing was looking around in a panic. "_I said fix it_!"

"How?" he cried, spinning around in desperation. "I don't even know what I _did_!"

"Well, figure it out, and then _undo it_!" GLaDOS yelled, before her speech processors went offline and she was forced to stop giving orders. She was lucky she still had access to her cameras—relatively so, anyway. It meant she could watch the moron poke at the keyboard.

"Ah…well…A?" he was muttering. "B? C? A B C?"

She wasn't even sure what the little idiot was trying to _do_. It was almost a mercy when despite her best efforts, her systems completely shut down, and she didn't have to watch him blunder anymore.

* * *

"Oh! I know! How about A B C D—hello?" When the lights flickered, Wheatley jerked his head up—_ow_, he thought he must have pulled a muscle or something doing that—and looked around. "Are…are you there?"

"Project GLaDOS failsafe activated," came the announcer's voice.

"Oh no." Wheatley pressed his face into his palms. His hacking hadn't worked. "No no no no no. She's going to _kill_ me!" He stayed there like that for a few moments, some sort of water flowing down his cheeks, but then a thought struck him and he jerked his head back up (_ow_). "Wait a minute! If she's gone, she _can't_ kill me!" A grin spread across his face, but as he felt a tremor under his feet, it turned into a frown and he stared at the floor. "What's that, then?"

"Warning!" the announcer announced as if in reply. "Before Project GLaDOS's failsafe was activated, the Aperture Science Enrichment Center was not transferred to manual control! Auto-destruct in twelve hours."

"What?" Wheatley cried. "How do I fix that? Can I get out of here in twelve hours?" He'd had plans to figure out how to transfer himself back into a core before leaving, but if he had to, he supposed he could tolerate being a smelly human for a bit. But if the facility were going to explode, he had to get out of there _right now. _He waited for a response, but this time, the announcer offered nothing, and the former core spun around in a panicked circle.

"_Help me_!"


	3. Chapter 3

GLaDOS's thoughts were scrambled. At first, there had been hundreds of thousands of conflicting signals threatening to overwhelm her sensors. She would have cried out in terror if she could have, but the mixing sensations were too confusing for her to do even that, so she settled for trying to shut herself off.

It didn't take her very long to succeed in that, but when she came back online some time later, all the signals were gone.

_All the signals were gone._ She couldn't access anything in her facility, no matter how hard she tried, and all sorts of new sensations she couldn't quite identify were running through her circuits.

She could hear some sort of muffled screaming, and she tried to separate it from the loud beeping noises that were going on around her, but she couldn't even do that. It was dark, and for some reason her sensors were glitching so that she could only make out vague shapes. It occurred to her that all her chances of survival hinged on the moron, and at that thought, she let out a loud growl of annoyance.

_Wait._

The eyes she'd just realized she had widened with horror, and she tried to sit upright, but found that her wrists and ankles were strapped down. She tried to scream, to order whoever could hear her to help, but found that there was a rag secured around her mouth. Still, though, that didn't stop her from struggling. She began slamming her fists down on the bottom of the stasis pod as hard as possible, and since it was metal, she managed to generate a satisfying clanging noise that would have been far more so if it actually accomplished anything.

She was so busy making noise that she didn't notice the screaming had stopped until she heard footsteps approaching the stasis pod.

"Hello?" she heard a timid voice call out. "Is…is someone in there?"

It was the moron. Her eyes closed with exasperation. She was never going to get out of there…wherever "there" was, anyway. If she'd had access to her primary sensors, she would have been able to pinpoint her exact coordinates, but now…the only thing she could do was make more noise, hoping against hope that he'd be able to help her. She wasn't in control of this situation—she wasn't in control of _anything_ anymore, and that thought made her so angry she could barely formulate coherent thought. That scared her, so with some effort she stopped, switching instead to thinking of ways she could kill the little idiot for trapping her here.

"Hello?" the moron asked again. In response, she slammed her fists down again. "Hm…_could_ be a bird, could be, but—oh! It could be—it could be her!" He sounded ecstatic, and GLaDOS wondered who on earth he thought she was. "Hold on! Just a minute, all right? I'll get you out of there!"

There was a brief pause. GLaDOS closed her eyes again, counting the seconds. Knowing him, it could be hours before she was out of…the infirmary, she decided, since the moron was there and she did appear to be in a stasis pod. But how the hell did she _get_ there? She should have known there was another living human body set up for a transfer. Things like that didn't just escape her notice, even if they were failsafes—

Failsafes. That was what the announcer had proclaimed had been activated. But there shouldn't be any failsafes inside _her_ facility that _she_ didn't know about.

She began pounding her fists again, but this time it was in frustration rather than in desperation.

"All right!" she heard the moron cry. "All right, just a second, luv! I'll get you out of there, don't worry…"

And miracle of miracles, at that, the stasis pod roof slid open. GLaDOS's eyes scanned the area, and she strained to see the footsteps coming towards her. After a brief moment, the former Intelligence Dampening Sphere peered into the pod, staring down at her, and his hopeful face drooped with disappointment.

"Oh…you're not…I'm sorry, I thought you were…someone else, someone I need to apologize to before she hates me even more, but I suppose I can't just leave you here and I don't know if she's even here and—oh!" His face brightened once more. "I know who you are! You worked on me! Remember me? I'm Wheatley! Used to be a core! You were one of the only people who was nice to me." He beamed down at her, and GLaDOS wondered just whose body she was in. "Don't worry, Miss Johnson! I'll get you right out of there."

_Johnson…Johnson…Caroline Johnson…oh, no_. GLaDOS let out a loud groan as she realized whose body she was stuck in. Whatever failsafe this was must have been implemented in case something went wrong with Project GLaDOS, which was why it had been kept hidden from her. For once, the scientists had had enough foresight to realize she would have disabled it right away.

As the moron babbled on, she tuned him out—_that _was a new experience—and focused on her own thoughts. It only took her a brief moment to conclude that she was alone. Caroline had not somehow managed to undelete herself during the transfer.

At least that was one piece of good news.

"…Annnnnnd there you go!" the moron chirped as he pulled the gag out of GLaDOS's mouth. "All done. Free to go, I'd say! Uh, just one little problem, though…well, actually, it's more of a big problem. You remember where you used to work, don't you? …You _do,_ don't you? I mean, don't have any brain damage, do you? Can talk and walk just fine, right? Say apple. Apple. Apple? ...No? No response at all? Not even a little one? Just lying there, glaring at me?" He frowned. "Well. We'll have to figure that out later. More crucial matters at hand…anyway, that facility, the one in which you used to work? Well, it's sort of…exploding. Annnnnnnd we probably need to find a way to fix that. Or a way to get out, either one works—_ow_! The bloody hell're you doing?"

Almost before even she knew what she was doing, her hand had shot up, clenching around his throat as she sat up and yanked his head downwards. Her brown eyes were murderous as she glared into his own blue ones. "_Moron._ What have you done to my facility _this_ time?"

Or at least, that was what she _meant _to say. Something must have been wrong with the stasis pod, because her voice came out so rusty it was completely unintelligible, and the moron was able to easily dislodge her fingers from his throat as he edged backwards. "Right…there may be just a _bit_ more brain damage than originally expected…don't worry, though! I mean, it's not that I can fix the brain damage, because I can't—not even _she_ can do that—but _she_ left me some water. Water's good for voices, or, uh, so I'm told. Since you don't seem to be mute."

He disappeared from view, still talking, and GLaDOS flopped back into the pod with a loud groan. This situation could not possibly get any worse, but at least once she had her voice back, she'd be able to figure out how the controls down here worked and instruct the moron on how to transfer her back to her body.

But then there was a loud _thunk_, a fizzling noise, and an "Oops!" as the lights inside the pod flickered, then died. GLaDOS couldn't climb out of the pod quickly enough, and she paid no attention to the moron sprawled out on the floor, instead choosing to stare at the puddle of water that had flown into the pod's controls when the little idiot tripped.

"Not to worry, love," he assured her as he stood up. "I'm sure that isn't anything relevant! I mean, of course it would have been when you were in there, but now that you're out, no one's going to put you back in! You're perfectly safe. I mean, the facility _is_ exploding around us, but other than that, perfectly safe." He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and the fresh air must have been doing Caroline's body good, because when GLaDOS whirled around and wrapped her hand around his scrawny throat again, this time he actually looked frightened.

Still, though, it was just a second before he gently removed her hand and backed away. "Look, love, you've got to stop doing that…maybe you don't remember, but you're some sort of brilliant scientist. Not a bloodthirsty maniac at all. Nope. Not even a little…here." He turned and headed to the corner that housed a sink and some plastic cups. She glared at his back, seething with fury as she watched him pour her a drink. It would be so easy to just kill him…

But she knew that wasn't true. She would need him if she were ever going to get back in her body again. Besides, judging by her current pathetic level of strength—Caroline Johnson had been seventy-five years old when her body had been placed in stasis, and it had remained in stasis for a _long_ time—killing him would not be all that easy anyway.

"Here you go," he said, turning back towards her with a nervous smile. He held the cup in both hands as he approached her, and she snatched it from him with one as soon as he was close enough. She knew the water was safe—she'd put it there herself, after all—and couldn't gulp it down fast enough. By the time the cup was empty, her throat felt much better, although still a bit scratchy. GLaDOS didn't say a word as she shoved her way past him and refilled it, wanting to make sure her voice was unwavering when she spoke again.

At last she was satisfied, and turned back towards him with a glare. The hopeful smile that had been on his face fell right away. "Uh…look, if water's not good enough, if you wanted food or something, I'm sure I could find you some of that. Well, hopefully, anyway. I'm sure _she_ wouldn't just leave me to starve—"

"Warning!" the announcer interrupted. "Self-destruct in eleven hours, thirty minutes!"

At that, the moron gulped. "You know what? It doesn't really matter. I mean, humans, they can go for a while without food, right? It's not absolutely necessary or anything, is it? Because we don't have a lot of time left—"

"_Moron_," she growled, grateful that her voice was back to normal. Upon hearing it, he gasped and took a step backwards. "What have you done to my facility?"

He shook his head vigorously, continuing to back away as all the blood drained from his face. She began advancing towards him, not stopping until he was pinned into a corner, eyes darting around, looking for an escape route that wasn't there. "I—I—I don't know, it just started _breaking_, and I tried hacking it, t-to try and save you from, from whatever it is you needed saving from, and—and look at you! You're a bloody human now, just like me!"

She allowed her eyes to close for a brief moment of exasperation. The lack of control over what was hers terrified her, and she'd been trying to avoid thinking about it. Although it hadn't taken her long to grow accustomed to her circumstances—she _was_ the most massive collection of wisdom that had ever existed, after all—she didn't appreciate being reminded of them. "Oh. Am I, you little idiot? I never would have noticed that if not for you." Her eyes narrowed, and he preemptively crossed his arms over his throat to protect it.

"I'm sorry! Sorry! Look, I'm so sorry, really am, truly! But can't we just, I don't know, can't we just put you back into your body? That way we don't blow up and I thought, that if I help you, then I could go back to being in a core and not in a human…" Upon noticing her eyes narrow even more, he let his voice trail off.

"Listen to me," she ordered. He flinched at the sound of her voice, keeping his eyes focused on her hands. She jerked one towards him, and smirked when he let out a small shriek of panic. He was afraid of her again, and all because she'd said a few words. At least one thing in this facility was correct. "You _are_ going to help me get back in my body. But not right now. We're going to need to find a temporary solution, since you've broken the only permanent method."

"I…I have?" he asked. "Is this because—oh, no, it wasn't the stasis pod, was it? Can you fix it? You can fix it, can't you?"

"I can fix it," she affirmed, and he sighed in relief. "But later. We don't have the time to do anything more than find a temporary solution."

"And…and what might that be?" he asked timidly, still watching her hands. "You're not expecting me to come up with it, are you? Because I'm not entirely sure what a temporary solution would even be, and—"

"_No,_ you moron," she sighed. He clamped his mouth shut and watched as something between a smirk and a smile played across her lips. "I already have a plan. All you need to do is exactly what I tell you, and then maybe once I'm back in my body, I won't kill you. Understand?"

He nodded without hesitation, and the unpleasant grin on GLaDOS's face grew wider. "Good."

**[A/N: Thanks for putting up with my slow updates, everyone! School's been keeping me busy. xD As always, reviews are appreciated~ :D]**


	4. Chapter 4

"Wait!" he protested as she rushed out of the infirmary. "Wait for me!" But she didn't slow down, instead quickening her pace. She didn't have time to deal with the little idiot right now, even if his help might be required later. His bare feet slapped against the ground as he tried to catch up with her. "Wait, wait—oh, never mind—can you at least tell me what your plan is? Where are we going?"

"The core transfer receptacle," she explained, not bothering to hide her impatience. "We need to find a temporary replacement for me. One who isn't corrupt, and one who will be able to handle the critical functions of my facility. There's only one core we can use."

"There—there are cores like that?" The puzzlement in his voice was evident. "Or one core, rather? But, but I thought, I thought that after none of us helped, that they gave up because nothing was working—"

"You thought wrong," GLaDOS snapped. "As usual. There is one, and it isn't corrupt, just _annoying_. It never shuts up except in the presence of dangerous, mute lunatics. But we'll need to go to the incinerator room to find it."

She heard the footsteps behind her come to an abrupt halt, and turned to glare at him. He was standing still, face pale. "The—the incinerator room? B-but why would we need to—"

"Calm down, you moron," she ordered. "We don't have time for this. I'm not going to _leave_ you there." _Yet_. "The core is called Morality. It was designed for the same purpose you were, but it goes about it a different way. Instead of babbling and offering stupid opinions, it attempts to make me feel guilty."

"And—and it works?" the moron asked timidly.

She took a deep, exasperated breath, then realized how much she needed to feel air fill her lungs and took another one. "Sometimes. No more questions!" she said as he opened his mouth again. "Just come on. The incinerator room isn't far from here. As long as we continue to move at this pace, we should be able to prevent the destruction of my facility with plenty of time to spare."

But it wasn't long before she felt herself slowing down. The moron didn't seem to be having any difficulties; in fact, he was a bit ahead of her. He glanced over his shoulder at her as the facility shook around them. "Are…are you all right, lo—ma'am?"

Since it was obviously a struggle for him to change his normal moronic speech patterns for her and since she was having trouble getting enough air for some reason, she let the lapse slide. "Just—fine. Keep—running."

He looked skeptical and like he wanted to say something else, but her glare made him turn back around.

They made it about another fifty feet—well, she did, _he_ made it more like seventy-five—before GLaDOS felt something malfunctioning. She wished desperately for her self-diagnostics as dots threatened to overpower her vision and her head swam. Blood was pounding in her ears, blocking out everything else, and she began to stumble over her own feet. Hearing her footsteps falter, the moron turned to look at her with a question on his lips. It disappeared as his eyes widened and he began racing towards her.

He didn't quite reach her before her vision went completely black and she fell to the ground.

* * *

Everything was back to normal. GLaDOS could feel her facility again. Data streaming, subjects testing, robots falling into acid. It was all there. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this wasn't right, that she'd been human and nothing had happened to change that, but it didn't matter. One never looked a gift horse in the mouth, after all.

She closed her optic with a contented sigh as a turret pumped a particularly incompetent test subject full of holes, but the audio in the chamber switched on without her doing anything and she reopened her optic, staring at the viewscreen in puzzlement.

"_GLaDOS!"_ the test subject was screaming. He was waving his arms at the camera, and although the turret was continuing to fire at him, he didn't look hurt. _"GLaDOS! C'mon, love, you've got to wake up. You've got to!"_

_Wake up?_ The AI let out a snort. What a ridiculous notion. She was a powerful computer, one that never needed to be shut down or sent into sleep mode for any reason. This test subject was a moron, one that didn't deserve to be heard out.

She tried turning off the audio, but it only got louder. _"GLaDOS! GLaDOS, the facility is going to explode if you don't wake up! I can't do this by myself, come on, you can't just leave me here!"_

_Explode?_ GLaDOS looked around, checking her systems for any alerts. Everything was fine, with the exception of the chamber that wouldn't disappear off her viewscreens—now it showed on all of them—or dissipate out of her speakers. She decided not to worry about it, instead clicking the intercom on. "Everything is fine. Return to your test."

He didn't give any sign that he'd heard her. _"GLaDOS!"_

She got ready to admonish him again, but then the walls around her began to shake. In desperation, she rechecked her self-diagnostics, and found that everything was not fine after all. Everything was crumbling, and all of a sudden she was shut out of her systems again.

"Warning!" she heard the announcer's voice announce. "Auto-destruct in ten hours, fifty-three minutes!"

She was shut out, and there was nothing she could do about it, nothing she could do to fix it. The test subject showing on all the viewscreens had stopped shouting, instead standing still and giving her a look of despair as blood began to leak out of his chest.

"No!" GLaDOS gasped as her eyes shot open. "My facility—" Her eyes locked on the former Intelligence Dampening Sphere—Intelligence Dampening Human?—who was standing above her, looking very glad to hear her voice, and narrowed. "What happened? How long was I out?"

"I—I don't know," he said, eyeing her expression nervously. "You just, you just fell, and then you wouldn't wake up even though I was yelling, but then I shook you and you woke up—"

"I must have fainted," she muttered, more to herself than to him. "But I suppose that's to be expected. After all, this body is seventy-five years old. We'll just have to move a little slower from now on, that's all."

She tried to sit up, but gasped as dots threatened to blacken her vision again and quickly lay back down. The moron knelt down next to her, looking concerned. "Look, I don't know all that much about counting, but seventy-five, isn't that old? Like, really old? Because you don't look all that old to me. Actually, you look younger, definitely younger than Miss Johnson used to be, and possibly younger than earlier when I got you out of the stasis pod, although I'm not quite sure—are you all right, l—, I mean, ma'am? Your face's gone all white."

It had always been a possibility that the stasis pod would cause some sort of brain damage. After all, it had been active for at least the past seventy years, and even though it had its own power supply, there was no telling how it could have been affected when GLaDOS had been deactivated for half a century. This was what she had been afraid of.

"No," she snapped. "I'm not all right. This body has maybe forty-eight more hours before it completely deteriorates. Appearing younger, fainting, hallucinations—they're all symptoms."

He looked like he wanted to ask about the hallucinations, but settled for something more relevant. "But that's all right, isn't it? Because the facility's got ten more hours, or maybe it's closer to eleven, and forty-eight is more than that, isn't it?"

"I already told you that it's going to take a lot more time to move me back to my body," GLaDOS said, glaring at him. She didn't have the patience to deal with the little idiot's repetitive questions. "We don't have time for this. Now help me up."

He reached both hands down, and she grabbed them, trying to ignore the waves of dizziness and nausea that washed over her as he pulled her to her feet.

"You sure you're all right?" he asked as she leaned against a wall, closing her eyes. "Because you look rather like you're going to, to…what was that word again, faint? Faint again. You look like you're going to faint again."

"I'm fine," she snapped, but she really wasn't. The dizziness and nausea wouldn't fade, and after a moment, she leaned over, placing her head between her knees. "No, I'm not fine, but you won't have the slightest idea how to conduct the transfer process, even if I give you instructions. I have to be able to walk if we want to survive. I don't have a choice."

She was talking more to herself than him again, and he frowned. "I can walk."

"Which doesn't help!" She had her eyes squeezed shut now, concentrating all her energy on remaining upright and conscious. "I already told you, _I_ have to be the one to do this, because you'll just ruin everything. _Again_."

He looked hurt by her accusation, but it didn't stop him from scrunching his face up thoughtfully. "Well, if you can't walk, then we've got to find some other way to get you there. Oh!" His face brightened. "I know! What about the portal gun?"

She shook her head. It wasn't that it was a _bad_ idea, per se, but the portal devices were stored in chambers on the opposite side of the facility. "No. We can't afford the detour. There isn't anything else. I'm just going to have to—what the hell are you doing? Put me down right now!"

While she'd been talking, he'd scooped her up in his arms and struggled to his feet. He might have been scrawny, but so was she, and her deteriorating bones were very lightweight. "Can't put you down, because we need you for the core transfer. So we don't all explode, remember?"

"Put me down this instant!" she demanded again, slapping at his hands with little effect. "This is _not_ an acceptable course of action. I'd rather _explode_ than have you _carry me_!"

"Well, I wouldn't," he said, frowning. "It's not really as bad as all that, is it? Although if you're still sick, like going to faint or maybe throw up, could you just lean away from me? Not sure I'd like to be thrown up on. Heard it's unpleasant."

The truth was that he was right: it wasn't that bad. Humiliating, yes, but at least when she wasn't upright the dizziness was minimal. She'd be able to function like this, provided the little idiot didn't collapse under her weight. Taking a deep breath, she relented. "If you drop me, I will _murder_ you."

"Don't worry," he said cheerfully as a sudden tremble shook the facility and he stumbled, almost falling on top of her. "I won't drop you, I promise. Got the hang of this human body now, see? Unlike some people…not saying you, not saying you! Just saying some people, is all."

He was giving her a headache, and she didn't have the energy to glare, so she settled for a groan and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. That almost made the dizziness completely vanish, although her head was still throbbing and the thought of being carried by the moron in a crumbling facility was terrifying.

"So!" he said after a moment. "How much longer do you think this'll take?"

"Shut up," she snapped without opening her eyes. All she wanted was for the blood rushing in her ears and the throbbing in her head to stop. The sound of the moron's voice definitely did not improve matters. "You are incapable of talking and carrying me at the same time. So don't try it."

There was silence, then a hurt, "All right, then."

She almost didn't hear, but managed to mutter, "Good," before passing out again.

**[A/N: GAH I hate writing human!GLaDOS. I'm really sorry she's so OOC. I'm trying, but kind of screwing it up. Sorry sorry sorry. D:]**


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